"David thinks that Garcia may be Lakatos’ biggest challenge this year, but I think that game presents even more of a test for what Grantham and Belin can get out the linebackers."

This is something I didn't note in my post, but it's worth mentioning because, while Scott Lakatos faces the direct challenge of game planning the opponent's passing game, it's Todd Grantham that can have the biggest impact.

So let me now offer a quote from Grantham, discussing his 3-4 scheme:

"In the 3-4 you can be balanced. You really don’t have to declare your rusher until you see the formation sometimes. I think it gives you a better advantage over teams that are multiple formation-wise because you don’t get outflanked. You basically adjust your 'backers and you can still be solid against the run. And you also aren’t telling them who’s coming. The thing with the 4-3 is, the guys who put their hand in the dirt are the guys rushing. In a 3-4, I can tell you that the three guys with their hand in the dirt are coming, but one of those other outside backers is going to be coming 95 percent of the time. So they’ve got to account for all four of those guys on every snap, yet only one of those guys is going to be coming. So I think it gives you more position flexibility relative to the formations, and I also think it’s a little bit tougher for quarterbacks."

So what Grantham is saying is pretty simple: His scheme makes life confusing for QBs who aren't used to reading a 3-4.

And what my post from yesterday was saying is pretty simple, too: There won't be a lot of veteran QBs in the SEC in 2010.

So while there is rightly a legitimate concern about how quickly Georgia's defenders can learn Grantham's scheme, perhaps it's just as fair for other teams to be worried about how quickly their QBs can learn it, too.

***

OK, so enough about the quarterbacks. Let's talk about the rest of the offense around the SEC.

(And as a side note, Georgia returns the most offensive starters in the SEC, with 10. Mississippi and Tennessee return the fewest, with just four starters coming back on offense. You can see the full list of returning starters over at Phil Steele's blog HERE.)

First, let's start with the receivers. Here's what each SEC team has coming back for 2010...

Team

2009 Rec. Yards

Returning Rec. Yards

Percent Returned

Arkansas

3845

3353

87.2

Auburn

2857

2608

91.3

S Carolina

2940

2436

82.9

Georgia

2615

2323

88.8

Tennessee

2942

2166

73.6

Alabama

2631

2093

79.6

Kentucky

1824

1663

91.2

Vandy

1756

1509

85.9

Miss State

1685

1158

68.7

Ole Miss

2844

1109

39.0

LSU

2363

1096

46.4

Florida

3305

886

26.8

SEC Totals

31,607

22,400

70.9

A few thoughts:

-- It's easy to see why people are excited about Arkansas. They return the best QB in the SEC in a pass happy offense that also returns 91 percent of its receiving yardage from last season. Dangerous.

-- Georgia returns the fourth-most overall receiving yards and the second greatest percentage of its receiving yards in 2010. And that's from a group that went three-and-a-half games without A.J. Green last year and employed three freshmen (Orson Charles, Tavarres King and Rantavious Wooten) in significant roles. Give Green a full season and add the typical growth from freshman to sophomore seasons for the other three, and maybe that receiving corps shouldn't be too big of a worry for UGA fans.

-- It's one thing to enter the year without an established QB. That, of course, will be the case for two-thirds of the SEC this year. But it's another thing to do that with what is far and away the least accomplished group of receivers in the league, and that's exactly what Florida will do in 2010.

Listen, I've seen enough of Urban Meyer to assume he'll put a potent offense on the field no matter what this season, but he's definitely going to have to work a bit harder to do so this season than he has in the past (which is amusing considering he worked so hard it put him in the hospital last year).

Florida will return just 886 receiving yards in 2010 -- less than half the average among the other 11 schools -- and the biggest question mark surrounding the Gators last year was whether or not they had a legitimate vertical passing game.

Again, I don't doubt Meyer's ability to put a quality offense on the field, but it will be very, very interesting to see how that unfolds this season.

-- Also worth noting, I calculated stats for receptions and receiving TDs, too, but none were dramatically different than the numbers shown above. Kentucky returns the greatest percentage of receptions (90 percent) and South Carolina returns the most receptions overall (210). Florida remains last in both categories (75 receptions, 30 percent of 2009's totals).

Vandy returns the highest percentage of its 2009 receiving TDs -- all of them in fact. But that's not saying much since the Commies scored just six times through the air last season. Arkansas and Auburn both return more than 90 percent of their receiving TDs, while Florida, Ole Miss and LSU bring up the rear, all at about 35 percent.

***

That's the numbers on the receivers. But let's look at the running games, too.

Team

2009Rush Yards

ReturningRush Yards

PercentReturn

Alabama

3011

2695

89.5

Kentucky

2486

2077

83.5

Florida

3105

2056

66.2

Georgia

2093

1724

82.4

Vandy

1920

1687

87.9

Auburn

2756

1510

54.8

S Carolina

1576

1471

93.3

Arkansas

1713

1271

74.2

Ole Miss

2387

984

41.2

Miss State

2731

807

29.5

Tennessee

2045

695

34.0

LSU

1596

547

34.3

SEC Totals

27,419

17,524

63.9

A few thoughts:

-- People are excited about South Carolina this season, and I'm guessing a big reason for that is because the Gamecocks return such a large percentage of their overall offense from a year ago. But here's something that struck me: Auburn returns only about half of its total rush yards from 2009, but returns more total rush yards than South Carolina does, despite the Cocks bringing back 93 percent of last year's production. So the question then is -- does it matter how many returning players you have if they weren't that good to begin with? Of course, the flip side to that is, experience makes players better, so perhaps it's to be expected that we'll see growth in players from year to year.

-- Again, Georgia scores decent marks. The Dawgs return the fourth-most rushing yards in the SEC (and 82 percent of their total, with the missing 18 percent coming because of Richard Samuel's move to LB). But much as I wrote about UGA's receivers, this is a group that really only got going halfway through last season. It's not at all unreasonable to assume that the performances of Washaun Ealey and Caleb King should be much better if each plays a full 12 games than last year, when they combined to miss seven-and-a-half games between them.

-- The more I look at the success Morgan Newton had in his limited role last year and the percentage of talent that Kentucky is bringing back, the more I think the Wildcats could be flying a bit under the radar.

-- And let's look a bit deeper at Florida. Yes, the Gators are returning the third-most rushing yards in the SEC, but as a percentage of what the ran for last year, they're seventh in the conference. Obviously the biggest loss in that department comes from Tim Tebow, who was their star in short-yardage and red-zone situations.

Making matters worse is, what Florida loses in Tebow, it already wasn't very good at to begin with. The Gators ranked 10th in the SEC last season in red-zone conversions and they scored TDs on just 50 percent of their red-zone opportunities. (Georgia, meanwhile, was third in red-zone conversions and scored TDs 63 percent of the time.)

Of Florida's 34 red-zone TDs last season, Tebow was responsible for running in 11 of them. So it's not surprising that, while Florida returns nearly 70 percent of its total rushing yards from 2009, the Gators bring back just about 50 percent of their rushing TDs.

-- Along those lines, Vandy, South Carolina, Alabama and Arkansas all return more than 90 percent of their rushing TDs from 2009. LSU, Tennessee and Mississppi State all return fewer than 40 percent.

-- Scary thoughts: Alabama returns 92 percent of its carries, 90 percent of its rush yards and 94 percent of its rushing TDs from last year. And they'll probably be better this year. Yikes.

***

OK, so let's wrap the whole thing together. Here's how the SEC teams stack up in terms of total offense returning...

Team

2009 TotalOffense

ReturningTotal Offense

PercentReturn

Alabama

5642

4788

84.9

Arkansas

5558

4624

83.2

Auburn

5613

4118

73.4

Georgia

4708

4047

86.0

S. Carolina

4516

3907

86.5

Kentucky

4310

3740

86.8

Vandy

3676

3196

86.9

Florida

6410

2942

45.9

Tennessee

4987

2861

57.4

Ole Miss

5231

2093

40.0

Miss State

4416

1965

44.5

LSU

3959

1643

41.5

SEC Totals

59,026

39,924

67.6

And the numbers for overall offensive touchdowns:

Team

2009 TDs

Return TDs

Pct. Return

Arkansas

55

51

92.7

Alabama

48

41

85.4

Auburn

49

37

75.5

Georgia

41

34

82.9

Kentucky

39

32

82.1

S Carolina

30

27

90.0

Florida

58

26

44.8

Tennessee

47

26

55.3

Vandy

18

18

100.0

Ole Miss

44

18

40.9

LSU

34

13

38.2

Miss State

30

12

40.0

SEC Totals

493

335

68.0

A few final thoughts:

-- When you go 14-0, win a national championship, then return 85 percent of your offense -- and more total yards than anyone else in the conference, you're going to be a favorite to repeat. So yeah, Alabama's probably gonna be good again.

-- And it's also worth noting that Alabama's primary rivals last season -- LSU and Ole Miss -- return the lowest percentage of their total offense in 2010. The SEC West may be the better division next season, but there's a pretty big gap between what those top three teams bring back and the giant overhaul that will need to happen at the bottom three schools.

-- If you're Vandy, are you depressed that you scored a lowly 18 offensive TDs last year or are you excited that all 18 are returning?

-- The bulk of Georgia's "losses" are from Richard Samuel's move to defense. And since he's still on the team, perhaps it's not entirely fair to remove him from the stat totals (although I'd guess it probably is). So for the sake of argument, if you add his numbers back in, Georgia actually returns 4,442 total yards of offense, just a notch behind the top two teams and 94 percent of its total yards from a year ago.

-- And yes, I'm aware that another big factor in offensive success will be what teams return on the O line. But that's a post for a bit later... and one I promise I'll get to.

I wonder what the percentage of total defensive plays would look like for Bama. The offense should be fine, but the D could wind up looking like UF in 2007. I know Saban's "specialty is D", but I'm just saying.

Speaking of... Could UF wind up like UF 2004 where they had the bulk of their 2006 BCS champ squad in place, but played like a WAC team.In 2007 they lost 4 games and had amazing offense. This year they lose almost as many on D and have a lot of Q's on offense. Plus they add Bama this year , which is analogous (or better than) to 2007 Auburn which beat UF

It is possible that AU's offense could be better if Newton is better than the forgettable QB from last year.

You said you are blaming Mike Bobo, and therefore by direct report, Coach Richt for Coaching of Quarterbacks. That is what I read "it pains me to say."

You don't say Matthew Stafford had a great freshman season. I noted that.

You mentioned toughness throughout, and focus on last year. Now, this season everyone is expecting 6 feet 198 lbs. Aaron Murray to take over, when once again, Buck Belue points on this issue as well that Aaron Murray has been injured both of the last 2 seasons now. You mentioned 1 of them.

All I know is that we have not had a QB ready to take over since DJ Shockley in 2005. And, before that, none either.

Now we have 3 freshmen QB this season, none of whom have thrown a pass and Aaron Murray still hasn't taken a snap yet under center in his lifetime. Just shotgun only.

10-10 vs SEC East the last 4 years.

Lost 6 of the last 8 to Florida and the vols the last 4 years.

If, as you say straight up, we have issues on coaching of Quarterbacks here and now we asked Logan Gray 5 years in this system to move to wide receiver which he doesn't want to do, and we have had 53 Interceptions, 82 fumbles and have averaged Number 96 NCAA Penalties the last 4 years; I really don't see any conundrum whatsoever to point out that I too am quite satisfied we will have 1 of our best defenses ever this coming season, and once again will continue to struggle on Offense.

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About the Author

Seth Emerson has been covering the SEC and Georgia (on and off) since 2002. He worked at the Albany Herald from 2002-05, then spent five years at The State in Columbia, S.C., covering South Carolina. He returned to Athens in August of 2010, only to find that David Pollack and David Greene were no longer playing for the Bulldogs. Adjustments were made.

Emerson is originally from Silver Spring, Md., and graduated from Maryland in 1998 with a degree in journalism and a minor in getting lost on the way to practically everywhere. Then he spent four years at The Washington Post, covering small colleges, a couple NCAA basketball tournaments, and on one glorious day, was yelled at by Tony Kornheiser. It was probably at The Post that he also learned to write in the third person.

These days he lives in Athens with his beloved and somewhat wimpy dog, Archie. Together they fight crime at night in northeast Georgia, except on nights there is no crime, in which case they sit at home, sip on white wine and watch reruns of "Mad Men."